Fountain Valley puts off possible changes in mayor selection process

The Fountain Valley City Council has delayed possible changes in how it picks the mayor and mayor pro tem.

The council was set to consider and possibly vote Tuesday on an ordinance guiding how members choose the top officials from among themselves, but Colin Burns, the city’s attorney, said he wanted to reschedule the matter for the council’s April 3 meeting so he could tighten up the proposed language.

The council had four options on the table heading into Tuesday’s meeting, with each differing in the amount of discretion the council would have in choosing the mayor and the mayor pro tem, who is typically next in line for the top spot.

According to the current Fountain Valley ordinance, council members choose who gets the one-year posts based on seniority on the council.

However, the panel has discretion, and it invoked it the past two years when it skipped then-Councilman Mark McCurdy when he came up in the rotation.

That led to tense exchanges between McCurdy, who claimed he was being punished by his colleagues for holding unpopular opinions, and other council members who said they had issues with McCurdy’s absences from meetings about the city’s strategic plan and from other city events.

Some residents also objected on McCurdy’s behalf.

McCurdy resigned from the council in January, saying he needed to find work outside the area.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD